In 35 years at sea, HMS Iron Duke only ever fired her guns in anger a handful of times. She did so to hit a gun battery during the war against Colonel Gaddafi in Libya in 2011, and before that while seizing drugs in the Caribbean in 2009.
For a Type 23 frigate, designed in the 1980s to take on the might of the Soviet navy, it was small-scale stuff. But at a time when the Cold War seemed long over, it was a reminder that a well-resourced navy still had its uses.
